Is Apple really 'closing the gap' on Android as far as smartphone market share is concerned, or is there more to the battle of the mobile handsets than the latest set of headline figures suggest? [ATTACH=RIGHT]23604[/ATTACH]Certainly if you take the research, and associated press releases surrounding it, from Nielsen regarding smartphone sales then you might be forgiven for thinking that Android handsets are in danger of being overtaken by iPhones in terms of handsets in, well, hands. The [URL="http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/more-us-consumers-choosing-smartphones-as-apple-closes-the-gap-on-android/"]NeilsenWire release[/URL] in question doesn't help by loudly proclaiming "More US Consumers Choosing Smartphones as Apple Closes the Gap on Android" - …

An increasing number of my acquaintances seem to be in the habit of buying cheap Android smartphones when in China on business and, increasingly, from online auction sites. More often than not these will be clones of flagship models but without the flagship price tag; however, cheap is not always cheerful. I've seen some of these devices with their look-alike operating systems and their flimsy construction, and given a quick once over have to say I wouldn't trust them with my calls, texts and data. That level of mistrust appears to be well founded, not least because it would seem …

You might be forgiven for thinking that the iPhone is the most secure of the smartphone choices, especially if you've opted for a 5S or above with that fingerprint reader for secure ID and iOS 8 as the most robust of operating systems. Forgiven, but wrong; despite the claims from Apple that iOS is designed with advanced security technologies built in rather than bolted on. If you go by the results of the annual [PWN2OWN](http://www.pwn2own.com/) hacking competition which was held in Tokyo last week, then iOS fell behind Android and to add to the jaw-dropping amongst many pundits Android in …

Hardly a week goes by without yet another press release hitting the desk of your technology journalist, or research flag being raised amongst the IT Security profession, that claims Android is insecure. What Android actually is, just like Windows on the desktop in fact, is a big and attractive target; which in turn makes it the focus of attention for those looking to exploit mobile device vulnerabilities. The bad guys will pour their resources, in terms of both time and money, into discovering and exploiting those vulnerabilities which will present them with the best profit making potential. That, dear reader, …

As a platform, Android is naturally very attractive to the criminal fraternity in terms of potential profitability. After all, it has the market share and that nearly always means it has large numbers of users for whom the word security may as well be written in the Cyrillic alphabet. My analogy assumes, of course, that those are users not familiar with this particular script and I used it for good reason: new worms coming out of Russia are posing a threat to Android users. Denis Maslennikov, a security analyst with AdaptiveMobile, has discovered a previously unknown worm called [Selfmite](http://www.adaptivemobile.com/blog/selfmite-worm). This …

Another day, another breach. The latest to disclose that there had been some 'unauthorised access' to systems and internal company data' is music streaming service Spotify. The disclosure itself was something of an odd one, claiming that investigation suggested only a single user's data had been compromised following an issue with the Android app. Oskar Stal, CTO at Spotify, claims that the investigation suggests no password, financial or payment information was accessed. "Based on our findings, we are not aware of any increased risk to users as a result of this incident" Stal insists, continuing "...as a general precaution will …

Feedly app left attack window open for malicious JavaScript hackers according to one security researcher. Security consultant and blogger Jeremy S [revealed](http://breaktoprotect.blogspot.in/2014/04/feedly-android-application-zero-day.html) that the Feedly Android app, or at least the version prior to the update on March 17th 2014, had been subject to a zero-day JavaScript code injection vulnerability. Jeremy reported the discovery to the Feedly developers who patched the vulnerability within 24 hours, ethical disclosure working at its best if you ask me. The Singapore based researcher explained that the code injection was possible from an RSS feed into the app itself as the Feedly app didn't sanitize …

Android-driven devices, including smartphones and tablets manufactured by the likes of Asus, LG, Motorola and Samsung, are being sold with pre-installed malware according to claims made by the CTO and Founder of Marble Security. David Jevans made the claim following complaints from a potential client that a mobile security platform from the vendor was mistakenly identifying a Netflix app as being malware. Upon further investigation, Marble researchers discovered that the apps in question were not only malware but were actively harvesting both passwords and financial data which were being sent to a Russian server. Although malware is nothing new, and …

Wearable computing has been a buzzword for so long that it's easy to get blinded by the hype and not realise that actually it's a reality; and one that got even more real with the announcement by Google of Android Wear. Forget the fitness bands of today and the 'smart watches' of yesteryear, with Android Wear Google hopes to get the jump on Apple (likely to announce a smart watch iOS platform real soon now) by extending the hugely popular Android OS to wearables. The starting point of this strategy being smart watches that combine time-telling with app notifications, voice …

Microsoft knows it has to do something in order to claw back some kind of market position, not now but five years into the future. The culture of computing is changing amongst the young and hip consumer, and it's moving away from the Microsoft Windows-centric vision of the past. While Microsoft remains buoyant within the enterprise, powering business globally with plenty of success, the Seattle tech giant would do well to realise that even this core part of the corporate plan is not immune to the generation now effect. What consumers want today can, indeed almost certainly does, influence how …

Which? magazine [has revealed](http://blogs.which.co.uk/technology/phones-3/apple-iphone-5s-fastest-phone-samsung-galaxy-s4-lg-g2/) the new Apple iPhone 5s to be the fastest smartphone of all in the latest round of processor benchmarking tests, despite it having less cores that rival handsets. Not only was the 5s almost twice as fast as the iPhone 5 in testing, but also around 50% faster than the Samsung Galaxy S4. In fact, the iPhone 5s is the fastest smartphone Which? has ever tested. According to the Geekbench-powered lab tests that Which? applied to a range of flagship smartphones, replicating real-world tasks and producing a weighted score measured against a Mac Mini with an …

Aggressive adware, of the kind that creates shortcuts on your screen or changes your search engine configuration, has arrived on Android devices and then some. According to security vendor Bitdefender, as much as 90% of free Android apps contain adware with up to 75% coming with the 'aggressive' variety. ![dweb-androidadware](/attachments/small/0/dweb-androidadware.jpg "align-right") Although adware on the PC has become something of a non-problem courtesy of better educated users and software solutions both within browser clients and third party solutions combining to make it relatively easy to deal with these days. The kind of pop-up creating adware most often seen on the …

Apple has, of late at least, oft been accused of following rather than leading when it comes to smartphone innovation. Perhaps the launch of the iPhone 5s with the somewhat controversial fingerprint scanner has changed that, just a little bit. HTC, the powerhouse in the Android smartphone hardware market, has announced the latest addition to the fleet: the [HTC One Max](http://www.htc.com). And guess what? Yep, it comes complete with a fingerprint scanner built in. ![c2321737888a0c64a7e0ab719881847e](/attachments/small/0/c2321737888a0c64a7e0ab719881847e.jpg "align-right") OK, the similarities to the iPhone 5s pretty much start and end there. Not least you only have to take a look at the …

A survey of more than 700 tablet owners in US, UK and Australia has revealed some interesting insights into how people use their devices. The $195 Gartner 'Consumers Buy Media Tablets Based on Lower Prices and Better Quality, not Brand' report (gotta love that snappy title, huh?) unsurprisingly shows that tablets are being bought for different reasons than they were two years ago. Unsurprising, to me at least, as I would imagine it's pretty obvious that the market has grown so big during this period and the 'late adopters' for want of a better description are likely to have different …

A successful tournament poker player from Japan, with earnings estimated at $1.5 million from his prowess at bluffing and holding his nerve under pressure, has been arrested and charged with being behind an Android malware distribution operation that netted even more: $3.9 million according to Symantec. The Chiba Prefectural Police in Japan arrested a total of nine people in connection with distributing spam emails with download links to the Android.Enesoluty malware. Symantec [reports](http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/big-poker-player-loses-high-stakes-android-scam-game) that one of these was 50 year old Masaaki Kagawa, president of an IT firm from Shibuya, Tokyo. "His passion for taking chances and risks has paid …

If you’ve ever checked out of a grocery store, you’ve seen [I]Cosmopolitan[/I], [I]Seventeen’s[/I] hussy mother, prominently on display in magazine racks next to packs of Juicy Fruit and 2-for-1 Heath Bars promising “7 New Ways to Satisfy Your Lover.” The editorials, which are laughable at best, have helped bring men from Mars and women from Venus past their relationship issues together on a mattress here on Earth. If you’re sick of paying for yearly subscriptions to the world’s leading estrogen journal to have to sift through 150 pages of perfume ads to learn "The Passion Pretzel" or the "Frolicking Fruit …

[ATTACH=RIGHT]22083[/ATTACH]In an unusual take on the usual 'my smartphone is better than your smartphone' debate, a new survey has revealed that when it comes to the amount of time we spend using our handset of choice, iPhone users are the biggest addicts. So addicted, in fact, that many iPhone users cannot bear to be parted from their smartphone no matter where they are: and that includes the loo. According to digital banking provider Intelligent Environments which commissioned YouGov to undertake the research of British smartphone users last month, some 43 percent of iPhone users spend more than two hours a …

[ATTACH=right]16393[/ATTACH]Vonage, the voice over broadband service provider, [URL="http://pr.vonage.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=496277"]announced today[/URL] the release of its new mobile app that provides free calls from mobile phones to other Facebook users with the same application. The new app, called Vonage Talk Free, marks the beginning of the company's attempt to reach a broader, and likely younger audience. The idea really is ingenious, bringing new customers into the Vonage VoIP system without setting up a new account or purchasing a new device. For the most part it works with the infrastructure already in place. "The Vonage Mobile app for Facebook is a tangible example of …

[ATTACH=RIGHT]16395[/ATTACH]HTML5 is a young programming language, with a lot of promise. It has been lauded as the Flash replacement that will revolutionize the web and more importantly, the mobile web. But with so much speculation and excitement, it's hard to recognize the forest for the trees. Where did HTML5 come from and what does it mean for the future of the internet as we know it? [B]Apple Made HTML5 a Household Name[/B] Without a doubt, the iPhone is the catalyst for the ever growing contention with Flash. It wasn't until everyone had the web in their pocket that they realized …

The UK-based [Surrey Police Force](http://www.surrey.police.uk/) has long since embraced Internet culture as being a way to help fight crime. It has an online crime reporting tool, active accounts on Facebook and Twitter, as well as a video channel on YouTube. But now it has moved into smartphone territory in order to entice members of the public into identifying suspected criminals by looking at CCTV mugshots using an app called Facewatch. ![dweb-facewatch](/attachments/small/0/dweb-facewatch.jpg "align-right") Available for free on the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry platforms as well as [on the web](http://www.facewatchid.co.uk), Facewatch lets the would be home-detective input their postcode and a distance …

My name is Davey Winder, and I am a phoneaphobic. At first glance it would appear that I am anything but alone if the results of a recent study into attitudes towards mobile phone usage are to be believed. But first impressions are often misleading and that's the case here, as unlike me it seems that the majority of people do not have a phobia of simply speaking on the phone (or more accurately having my train of thought interrupted by meaningless telephone conversations when an email will usually suffice) but rather the exact opposite. [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomophobia"]Nomophobia[/URL] is the fear of …

The world's largest digital jobs survey, using data extracted from more than 230,000 jobs posted to The Freelancer.co.uk site, reveals some interesting hiring trends in the developer sector. ![dweb-androidapps](/attachments/small/0/dweb-androidapps.jpg "align-right") According to the latest Freelancer Fast 50 survey, if you are a mobile apps developer than it's pretty good news overall with job offers in both Android and iOS marketplaces on the up. However, Android developers should have the broadest smiles on their faces after the survey showed that job offers for them were up by 16% on the previous quarter. Meanwhile, although I would hardly have used the word …

Samsung has fixed the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) exploit that could remotely wipe data from a Galaxy S III smartphone, but that doesn't mean the USSD threat is over: far from it in fact. According to some security researchers, 400 million Android device users are at risk from having their hardware bricked. It's not just owners of the Samsung Galaxy S III that are vulnerable to this particular attack, or indeed just Samsung handsets at all as first thought. As is often the case, the discovery of a vulnerability leads to several new ways to exploit it and that's …

Mobile malware has moved from the security vendor testing labs, out of the realms of marketing hype and FUD, and [firmly onto your smartphone](http://www.daniweb.com/hardware-and-software/tablets-and-mobile-devices/news/382139/how-mobile-malware-actually-grew-by-1400-percent-in-the-last-12-months). The main target for the malware distributors would appear to be the Android platform, which is not surprising given the rapid growth in the userbase coupled to the 'open to all' nature of the Android app marketplace. Up until now, the usual method of monetizing Android malware had been to subscribe to premium SMS text message services owned by affiliates of the cyber-criminals. Other than this, monetization of malware on the smartphone platform had been rather …

The results from what is claimed to be the most comprehensive global online job trends survey, the 'Fast 50' Q2 2012 report took data from 190,000 online job postings as an indicator of the global online employment economy. Some of the findings are surprising to say the least, such as how the Facebook IPO fiasco has impacted negatively upon employment within the social media sector and why Apple is leaving Android in its dust. The Facebook IPO 'fizzer' has seen Facebook related jobs fall by 14% in the quarter, and Freelancer.co.uk (the authors of the Fast 50 report) reckon this …

**Appcelerator releases Titanium 2.0 with suite of mobile cloud services.** On April 17th, 2012, Appcelerator took the wraps off of the latest release of their flagship product Titanium 2.0. This major point release of the seminal cross-platform mobile development environment brings with it a new suite of ready-to-use 'Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities' via an available SDK. For those unfamiliar with Titanium, it is an award winning mobile development platform with over 40,000 apps downloaded to millions of devices. It supports native app development by providing seamless JavaScript APIs for thousands of device-native functions in iOS & Android in addition to …

[ATTACH=RIGHT]16645[/ATTACH]Oracle announced Thursday evening (August 12) that they would be filing a lawsuit against Google, claiming that their Android phone software infringes upon patents and copyrights of their Java software, which they acquired when they purchased Sun Microsystems in January for $7.4 billion. "In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement," Oracle spokeswoman Karen Tillman said in an official statement. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, alleges that Google “willfully and deliberately” infringed upon seven Java patents and has even gone so …

With the recent announcement of an easy way to gain root access for Android phones running 2.3.4, to add to the list of similar exploits for earlier versions and 3.0 and beyond, it should come as no real surprise that the bad guys are taking advantage of the relative weakness of the Android OS when compared to iOS devices. [ATTACH=RIGHT]23200[/ATTACH]According to the latest FortiGuard Labs report looking at the top five Android Malware Families, there are approximately five times the number of malicious families on the Android OS as compared Apple's iOS. Of course, some of this will be down …

[ATTACH=RIGHT]22851[/ATTACH]Thought Apple had the tablet market sewn up? Think again. And it's not Android but apathy that's the problem according to new research. Yep, if you thought Apple had the whole tablet computing market sewn up tighter than a zombies' mouth, you would be wrong according to newly published research which, while confirming the iPad as market leader, points towards a far from certain future when it comes to convincing the average consumer (as opposed to early adopting gadget geeks) that tablet computing is for them. A new study of UK consumers has shed some interesting light on the attitudes …

[ATTACH=RIGHT]22271[/ATTACH]It's official: Android now has a greater market share than iPhone across the EU5 countries of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. According to newly published data from the [URL="http://www.comscore.com/Products_Services/Product_Index/MobiLens"]comScore MobiLens service[/URL], nearly one in four smartphone users in the EU5 region were using smartphones running on a Google Android platform. In the three months covered by the research, ending in July 2011, there were a total of 88.4 million smartphone users amongst mobile subscribers in the EU5 which represents a 44 percent increase from the year before. Of these, the undoubted winner was Android with an increase in …